Aidan McLaren-Caux is used to being stopped in grocery store aisles by people who want to discuss issues as a local politician, but a federal agency’s decision to cull a flock of 400 ostriches in Edgewood, B.C., has brought the region and local officials “an extraordinary amount of attention.”
“A lot of the attention has come from elsewhere, so other parts of the province, and the country and even internationally,” he said Friday. “It’s definitely a topic of conversation at coffee shops.”
McLaren-Caux is a board vice-chair with the Regional District of Central Kootenay, which passed a resolution Thursday not to allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to dispose of ostrich carcasses in its landfills pending further testing of the birds for avian flu.
The agency ordered the birds destroyed in December after avian flu was found on the farm and a Federal Court ruled to uphold the decision earlier this week. More than 8.7 million birds have been culled in British Columbia since a highly infectious form of the avian flu showed up on farms starting in the spring of 2022.
The board resolved “to withhold acceptance, at any landfill” of ostrich carcasses from the farm, where the flock has been ordered destroyed by the agency, until there is further testing for avian flu.
The board resolution says landfill acceptance hinges on testing by either the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or the Ministry of Agriculture to confirm the number of birds infected or exposed to the virus.
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Opponents of the cull celebrating the resolution online have understood that to mean carcasses will be rejected unless they test positive.
McLaren-Caux said the resolution’s “intentions are difficult to capture,” because it passed as written after an emotional meeting with supporters of the farm opposed to the planned cull.
McLaren-Caux said regional officials received hundreds of emails before the meeting and the rationale behind the landfill resolution was to possibly give the farmers and ostriches “a reprieve from the cull order.”
“I think all the directors have received many, many emails since yesterday from people expressing gratitude about the decision,” he said in an interview on Friday. “Just looking at my email inbox, some of the messages that expressed relief or gratitude for our decision have come from people who expressed a very different opinion a day or two earlier.”
He said the district has no authority over federal decisions, but it does have power over regional waste management, and given how the motion is worded, he believes any positive test for bird flu would mean “our landfill would have to accept animals that had been culled.”
The resolution itself does not specify whether the landfills will accept or reject the bird carcasses based on positive or negative tests.
He said the regional government’s limited powers mean that they had to try to adopt a “balanced approach” to an issue that has galvanized people to flock to the farm property since it was thrust into the spotlight.
“The people who are supporting the farm have definitely taken advantage of kind of the viral nature of social media and YouTube and all the things to get support and support from even far away,” he said.
Dozens of people have heeded the call of the farm’s owners to converge upon the property, about 575 kilometres southeast of Vancouver, to stop the Canadian Food Inspection Agency from moving ahead with the cull.
Supporters have been promoting what they call “Ostrich Fest 2025” at the farm this long weekend, featuring musicians, dancing and information sessions.
The farmers’ cause has also been mentioned by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who told a New York radio show last month he was “horrified by the idea that they are going to kill these animals.”
McLaren-Caux said if the birds get tested and are found to be well, the hope is that the cull order will be rescinded.
“We have our legal, our kind of prescribed structures within which we have to work, but as human beings, none of us want to see this happen,” he said. “You know, it’s a small business, there’s 400 large animals. None of us want to see them dead.”
